Clothes wringer



July 1, 1941.

A. J. LEONARD CLOTHES WRINGER Filed Feb 10, 1939 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 July 1, 1941. A, N RD 2,247,953

CLOTHES WRINGER Filed Feb. 10, 1939 3 Sheets-Sheet2 mwym July 1,1941. A. J. LEONARD I CLOTHES WRINGER Filed Feb. 10, 1959 3 Sheets-:Sheet 3 mm, fimmhfi, a aw Patented July 1, 1941 UNITED STATES PATENT QFFICE CLOTHES WRINGER Andrew J. Leonard, Oak Park, Ill., assignor of one-half to Frederick K. Mueller, Chicago, Ill.

8 Claims.

My invention relates to improvements in the construction of clothes wringers of the pressure roll type, and while not restricted to such use it has especial utility in its application to power driven wringers such as are associated with washing machines, employing a pair of rolls disposed in a vertical plane and driven by an electric motor, the latter usually located at the base of the frame structure underneath the tub of the washing machine. In combined washing and wringing machines of this general construction it is customary to support the wringer mechanism by a bracket secured to a stationary part of the frame and projecting above the top of the tub, and to drive the wringer mechanism by a vertical shaft connected with the motor.

Such electrically driven washing and wringing machines have been in use for many years, but as heretofore constructed the wringer rolls exposed the operator to serious danger of injury, due to the fact that in feeding the clothes between the rolls the hands, or some portion of the clothing, or even the hair of the operator is liable to be caught and drawn between the rolls, with resultant and frequently serious injury. Further, when such machines were used for domestic washing and small children were about while the work was being done, their lack of caution and understanding of dangerousness of the machine added to the peril of accident. Due to these recognized hazards, manufacturers in some instances provided switches or release mechanisms conveniently located near the rolls for stopping their movement, and more recently such release mechanisms were provided with stop members such as bars, or rods, in such proximity to the rolls as to be automatically operated when the hand of the operator or any part of the body was caught and came into contact with it as the hand was being drawn into the grip of the rolls; but in the first instance the operator was liable to become panic stricken and fail to use the release, or if the automatic safety type was employed the release was apt to be accidentally and frequently operated and cause inconvenience and delay by unnecessarily stopping the machine. Other manufacturers employed wringers of the spinner type, not open to such objections but more expensive and generally not regarded as so efiicient.

In all wringers of the pressure roll type known to me, however, such remedies provided for the objections mentioned have consisted in a quick release after the hand, or an article of washing being gripped by it, and being directed into the bite of the rolls, or a portion ofthe operator's garment had been caught and was being drawn in between the rolls and bodily injury had begun or become imminent unless the roll movement were stopped immediately. Such remedies have relation, therefore, to provisions for minimizing the extent of the injury which has occurred, or become imminent; not to preventing such occurrences from arising.

Further, in consequence of the accidents which have occurred and the obvious necessity for stopping the movement of the wringer rolls before serious injury has taken place, the underwriters laboratory, maintained by insurance companies, under its present safety standards, restricts the surface speed of the rolls of such appliances to 275 inches per minute, although higher speed and greater efiiciency can readily be attained.

The object of my present invention is to remedy the defects and objections above pointed out in Wringers of the pressure roll type by means of a construction of a pressure roll casing and guide and guard members which will entirely eliminate the dangers and hazards incident to the use of such pressure roll wringers, and incidentally permit operation of such wringers at a higher rate of speed than is now regarded as safe. To this end I have devised and invented the forms of pressure roll wringers shown in the accompanying drawings and which will hereinafter be described in detail. My invention resides in the construction and arrangement of the parts of the described wringers, combined and cooperating as set forth, the elements whereof are more particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

In the drawings, Figure 1 shows in perspective a view of my improved wringer in a preferred form; Fig. 2 is a top plan View of the same; Fig. 3 is a central longitudinal vertical section of the same; Fig. 4 is a transverse vertical section of the same; Fig. 5 is a similar section, showing a garment passing through the wringer, and the movable parts in the position occupied at such time; Fig. 6 is a top plan view of a modified form of my invention; and Fig. 7 is a transverse vertical section of such modified form.

Like reference characters indicate like parts in all the figures of the drawings.

It will be understood that both the preferred and modified embodiments of my invention are designed to be mounted upon a bracket (not shown) secured to a stationary member or portion of a combined washing machine and wringer, both actuated bya motor and actuating connections (likewise not shown) including a vertical driving shaft.

As usual with wringers'of the pressure roll type used in combined washing and wringing machines, the wringer is pivotally supported by a gear casing enclosing driving and reversing mechanism. This casing is pivotally mounted on a vertical axis so the wringer may be conveniently swung horizontally into and out of position to be conveniently operated. In the present instance I have illustrated a convenient mounting for the purpose (see Fig. 3) which includes a stationary supporting sleeve A secured to the top of the tub of the washer which provides a bearing for the driving shaft before mentioned, marked B. The gear housing, marked I, is formed with a hub I at its base which is formed with a cylindrical socket providing a thrust bearing arranged to receive the supporting sleeve A and thus provide a pivotal support for the gear housing and the wringer mechanism carried by it.

V The upper end of the driving shaft 13 is in the present instance formed with a squared socket by which the shaft is connected with the squared lower end of a rotatably mounted short vertical pin 2' of the driving and reversing mechanism. Describing briefly the particular mechanism em.- ployed (although it will be understood that any other suitable mechanism may be employed), it may be explained that the vertical pin 2 carries a bevel gear 3 fixed to its upper end which is constantly in mesh with two opposite bevel gears 4 and 5' rotatably mounted on a horizontal driving pin 5'. The inner faces of the gears 4 and 5 are formed with clutch members arranged to alternatively mesh with outwardly facing clutch elements formed on the opposite side faces of a sliding ring 1' which is splined to the driving pin 6 and is arranged tobe shifted to extreme opposite positions to make clutched engagement with one or the other of the clutch elements on the gears Q and 5, or to a neutral intermediate position, by means of a pivoted hand lever 8 carrying an cecentrical'lymounted pin 9' engaging a peripheral groove in the ring l.

" It may here be stated that, as in the case of pressure-roll wringers generally, the parts of the wringeiiroll structureare symmetrical in construction with'reference to a vertical plane passing through the axes of the pressure rolls so that the wringer can be oscillated to whatever position is most convenient for operation, and the articles to beiwrung may be fed into the wringer and discharged therefrom in either direction, as may be most convenient.

The gear housing I above described is (in the presentinstance) connected with a pressure roll housing '(see Fig. 1') in which the pressure rolls hereinafter mentioned are enclosed. This roll housing includes a casing (marked H as an entirety) which is formed with end walls l2"-l2 inclined side walls l3-l3, constituting guard plate members, and an inwardly and downwardly curved top flange l4 defining an approximately rectangular feed opening. The side walls, or guard plate members l3, extend downwardly in a generally upright position from a horizontal plane adjacent the top of the upper roll to a plane below the meeting line of the rolls, and in the present instance with its lower edge slightly above the bottom of the lower roll and spaced away therefrom, so that the-members constitute perthe end walls of the casing, and a bottom section Hi connecting the lower ends of said end sections. The channel member may be conveniently secured to the end walls l2 of the casing by cutting such end walls away centrally and forming vertical flanges IE at the sides of the opening which are riveted or otherwise secured to the parallel sides of the end sections lE-IB of the channel member, see Fig. 1.

The roll housing also includes a drainboard member i1 having opposite inclined sections {S ll and a central trough l9 which is shouldered to seat on the top of side flanges of the bottom section E6 of the channel membersee Figs. 4 and 5 and at its outer corners is secured in suitable manner to the lower corners of the end sections 12-42 of the casing, in the present instance by means of screws extending through orifices in the casing and engaging blocks seated in the curved flange at the lower edge of the drainbcard sections l8 and welded thereto. The drainboard member is further braced and supported by a pair of screws extending upwardly through the bottom frame channel section It and engaging screw-threaded seats formed at the bottom of the trough portion of the drainboard, see Figs. 4: and 5;

The gear housing l enclosing the reversing gearing is secured to the roll housing just described by means of" a pair of vertical channel plates 28 suitably secured, as by screws or rivets, to the vertical inner faces at the sides of the inher end of the gear housing and also secured, in a similar manner or by welding, to the outer face of the vertical channel frame section H3 at the right end of the roll housing, see Figs. 2 and 3.

The vertical sections l5l5 of the channel frame member serve to support a pair of opposite bearing blocks 2-l2'l which rest upon a pair of short horizontal cross brackets 2222 having downwardly extending end flanges 23--23 which rest; upon lugs 24 struck up inwardly from the side; members of the channel member sections l5',! 5, seeFig. 3. The upper sides of these blocks are formedwith semi cylindrical bearing faces to receivejthe journals of the lower pressure roll 25. The inner or right hand journal 25 of thisroll extends through the adjacent central web of the channel section 15 and through an orifice in the channel plate 29 above mentioned, and is squared 'at'its end to provide for flexibly coupling the journal to the similarly squared end of the driving pin 6 of the reversing mechanism by means of a coupling nut 21' having a correspondingly squared orifice, see Fig. 3.

The channel frame sections l5|5 also serve to confine and guide a pair of floating bearing blocks 2l3 z8- which are each downwardly stressed by means of a pair'of compression springs 2%} hearing at their upper ends against blocks 30 secured in, the'channel sections... The journals 3| at opposite ends of the shaftof the upper roll 32 are pivoted in the floating blocks 28, and such roll; is therefore stressed by the springs 29 into yielding contact withthev lower roll 25'.

To the inner upper margins of the inclined sections l8 l8 ,of. the drainboard member are secured flexible wipers, or strippers 33 which bear against the lower rol1'25, to. direct the water expressed from the clothes onto the drainboard and prevent the fabric from clinging to the roll and being wound around it instead of site sides of the upper pressure roll, I have provided a pair of guide plate members -36, pivotally connected at their top with the top of the guard plate member of the casing just within the front and rear sections of the inwardly curved flange [4 of the casing, said guide plate members extending from the axis of their pivotal connection downwardly and inwardly away from said guard plate members l3. The lower edges of these plates are yieldingly pressed by leaf springs 31 inwardly toward the side faces of the upper roll 32 below the level of the axis thereof and along lines a short distance above the level of the meeting point of the rolls. Stop lugs 3838, struck out from the end sections i5 of the casing are preferably provided to restrain the stop plates from pressing forcibly against the face of the roll, while stopping them in a position close to the surface thereof. The arrangement is such that when the articles to be wrung are introduced at the side of the opening towards which the upper surface of the exposed roll is moving, it will be carried by the roll onwardly and downwardly in contact with the yielding guide plate at that side, and will be directed by the plate into the bite of the two rolls.

Describing now the modified form of my invention illustrated in Figs. 6 and 7 of the drawings, the pressure roll casing comprises end plates, marked 40 and 4|, formed with curved inwardly extending top flanges extending over the ends of the upper roll 32, which is mounted in upper bearing blocks 28, the lower roll 25 being mounted in lower bearing blocks 2| mounted in the vertical sections of channel frame members 42, similar to the vertical sections l5 of the channel frame member before described, and which are secured to the outer faces of the end plates in the same manner. These end plates are rigidly connected to each other by the lower connecting section of said frame member 42 and by drainboard members, which may, as illustrated, be of similar construction to those of the preferred form of my invention already described.

Between the end plates 48 and 4| is arranged a pair of opposite hollow guard and guide members 4545, each having an inclined outer guard section 46 opposite the rolls, and a curved guide portion 41 occupying approximately the same position as the corresponding guide plate 36 of the preferred form of my invention already described, connected by a lower guide portion 48. The members 45 are connected to the corresponding end plate by means of pairs of pins 49 carried by upper plates 50 and lower plates 5| secured to the ends of the members 45, said pins working in slots formed in the end plates. The upper pins 49 are connected by tension springs 52 to lugs 53 on the opposite sides of the top of the vertical sections of the frame member 42, the arrangement being such that the members 45 are stressed upwardly and inwardly to the position of the left hand member shown in Fig. 7, but are free to yield under the pressure of a garment entering the wringer, as shown at the right of said figure.

The upper ends of the slots in the side plates, it will be observed, operate as stops to restrict upward movement of the members 45 beyond a point in close proximity to the upper roll 32, but not bearing against it, as do the stop lugs 38 in the preferred form of my invention. In both cases the proximate lower edge of the guide face of the yielding member on one side of the wringer acts as a stripper memberto prevent an article being fed through the rolls. from the other side from clinging to the upper roll and being wound around it instead of being discharged from the wringer.

As will be obvious from the foregoing description, in both forms of my invention a guard member is interposed as a barrier positively preventing introduction of the articles of washing directly in a horizontal direction to the grip of the pressure rolls, which is the cause of danger in the conventional type of wringers having exposed pressure rolls. In using wringers of the conventional type mentioned the hands of the user must constantly be used to lift the dropping edge of the entering garment, which is Wet, heavy and limp, and direct it between the rolls, whereas in my improved wringers the forward edge of the garment is fed downwardly from above and directed by a guide member arranged behind the barrier into the grip of the rolls. The space between the upper roll and the guide member is a source of no danger, since the feed opening at the top of the casing is wide and clear and well above the upper roller, and the edge or corner of an article being fed into the wringer will tend to hang downwardly from the hands of the operator and be carried forwardly and downwardly between the top roller and guide member into the grip of the rolls.

I claim:

1. In a clothes wringer, a supporting frame, a pair of upper and lower pressure rolls mounted in said frame, a guard member permanently barring direct horizontal entrance to the meeting line of said rolls, said frame having a feed opening at its top adjacent the upper line of said guard member, and inwardly and downwardly extending spring-pressed guide meansto the rear of and connected at its top to said guard member adjacent said feed opening and arranged to yieldingly guide articles introduced at said feed opening downwardly between said guide means and upper roll, said guide means having a lower edge stressed toward the lower outer face of the upper roll along a line below its axis and above the meeting line of the rolls, and stop means for stopping stressed movement of said guide means at a position with its lower edge in close proximity to said upper roll.

2. In a clothes wringer, a supporting frame, a pair of pressure rolls mounted in said frame, guard means including a side guard plate member disposed in a generally upright position and extending from a plane adjacent the top of the upper roll to a plane below the meeting line of the rolls, said guard plate member being spaced away from said rolls and forming a barrier preventing horizontal access to the meeting line of the rolls, and a spring-pressed guide plat-e member p-ivotally connected to the top of said guard plate member extending downwardly and inwardly and arranged to guide articles to be wrung into the grip between said rolls.

3. In a clothes wringer, a supporting frame, a pair of pressure rolls mounted in said frame, said frame including a casing formed with opposite sides constituting guard plate members disposed in a generally upright position extending from a plane adjacent the top of the upper roll to a plane below the meeting line of the rolls, said opposite guard plate members of the frame being spaced away from said rolls and forming barriers preventing horizontal access to the meet.

line of the rolls, and a pair of spring-"pressed guide plate members severallytpivotally connected to the top of said guard plate members extending downwardlyvand inwardly and arranged to guide articles to be wrung into the grip between sai-drolls. Y

4. .A clothes 'wrin'ger. having the structure recited in sc'laim 2 in which said spring-pressed t guide plate member is stressed to yieldin-gly press 'articles to be wrung against the upper roll closely above the meeting line of the rolls.

a "5. 111 a rclothe's 'lwringer, a supporting frame,

a pair-of pressure Jrollsm-ounted in said frame,

:guard mean-ss'ecured to said frame including .a stationary guard p-l'a-te member-disposed in a generally upright position and extending from a plane adjacent the top of the upper roll to a plane below the meeting line of the rolls, said guard plate member being spaced away from said rolls and nforming a barrier preventing horizontal access to the meeting line of the rolls and a spring-pressed-gui'de plate member pivotally connected-to the top of said guard plat-e member extending downwardly and inwardly and arranged to guide articles to be wrung into the grip beguard plate sections disposed in a generally upright position extending from a plane adjacent the top of th-e upper roll to a plane below the meeting line of the rolls, said guard plate sections being spaced away from the rolls and forming barriers preventing horizontal access to the meeting line of the rolls and the end and side portions being connected around their top to form a feed opening, and ;-a pair of spring-pressed guide plates severally pivotally connected to said side portionsto f the :casing at opposite sides of the feed opening extending downwardly and inwardly and arranged to guide articles to be wrung into thegrip between said rolls.

.7. In .-;a :clothes wrin'ger, a supporting frame, a pair of. pressure rolls mounted in said frame, guard means secured to said frameincluding a pair of stationary guard plate members disposed in .a generally upright position and extending from a plane adjacent the top of the upper roll to a plane below themeeting line of the rolls, said guard plate members being spaced away from said rolls and forming barriers preventing horizontal access to the meeting line of the rolls, and a pair of spring-pressed .guideplate members respectively pivotally connected tov the top of said guard plate members extending downwardly and inwardly, said guide plates being stressed to direct their lower edges toward the lower outer face of the upper troll :along .a line below its axis and above the meeting point of the rolls and said guide plates being arranged to strip articles being wrung from the upper roll on the passing of such articles from between the grip of the rolls.

8. In -a clothes wringer, a supporting frame, a pair of upper and lower pressure rolls mounted in said frame, a guard member permanently barring-direct horizontal entrance to the meeting line of said rolls, said frame having a feed opening at its top adjacent the upper line of said guard member,..and inwardly and downwardly extending spring-pressed guide means to the rear of and connected at its top. to saidguard member adjacent said feed opening andarranged to yieldingly. guide articles introduced at said feed opening downwardly between said guide means and upper roll, said guide means having a lower edge stressed toward the lower outer face of the upper roll along arline below its axis and above the meeting line of the rolls. I

ANDREW J. LEONARD.

EEEEFEEKEEEFFEYTRECYFI6N? 'Patent No. 2,21%955. July 1, 19114.

ANDREW J. LEONARD.

It is hereby certified that error appears inthe printed specification of the above numbered patent requiring correction as follows: Page 5, sec- 0nd column, line 59 and pageli, first column, line ZO, claims 2 and 5 respectively, before the word "barrier" insert --permanent-; page 5, sec- 0nd column, line 75 and page LL, firstcolu mn, line 5'7, claims 5 and 6 respectively, before "barriers" insert permanent-; and that the said Letters Patent shouldbe read with this correction therein that the same may conform to the record of the case in the Patent Office.

Signed and sealed this 12th day of August, A. D. 19in.

Henry Van Arsdale, Acting; Commissioner of Patents. 

